Thirty Seconds
by lifeofsnark
Summary: An old enemy give Dean thirty seconds to choose between saveing either Sam or ten innocent people. This fic takes place in the ten minutes surrounding that decision.


**Prologue**

"What was it you said, Dean?" the vampire taunted, yellowed teeth gleaming. "Saving people? Hunting things? The goddamn _family business?"_ He sneered. "Seems to me that you care a whole lot more about saving Sammy here." He jerked on Sam's throat, yellowed fingernails gouging through the tanned skin.

"Easy now," Dean said, voice low. "We-"

"No, Dean," the vampire shrieked, his voice slightly too high, eyes spacey." "They didn't have to die! They didn't! They were my family- and , and- you took them from me!"

Sam twisted in the creatures grasp, the muscles in his forearm rippling. The grip on his throat tightened, and he unintentionally wheezed. He saw Dean's jaw tighten.

The dark haired vamp took a deep breath; it's empty chest expanding and contracting. "Here's the deal, Dean. You can save people and lose your brother, or you can sacrifice Sam and save these people."

"What people-" Dean began, but already he was learning the truth of the situation. Another vampire had appeared in the dark recesses of the warehouse and was pushing back the large, mildewed dividers running along one edge of the room- the kind used in large schools or conference centers to separate a space. Behind the folding wall was a huddle of people, about ten or twelve at Dean's first glance. They were seated in a circle, facing out, their legs and waists secured with heavy-looking chains.

"Dean, I'm either going to kill your brother or all of these people. You have thirty seconds to decide."

 **30**

Dean remembered this vampire, remembered it like it was last week instead of almost a decade ago. It was a few months after picking Sam up from Stanford. Things had been going well, too well, and Dean had been floating on the high of having Sam back with him, of being part of a team, of waking up and seeing his brother in the opposite bed.

They'd gone after a nest of vampires plaguing the outskirts of Philadelphia. It had been almost too easy to track the young ones to their nest- they were killing with all the finesse and tactics of a starving grizzly after hibernation.

Inside the decaying mechanics shop the brothers had found this man, this vampire- Eric.

He'd pled for the lives of his "children", claiming that once their initial hunger was sated he would take them out of the city, teach them to live off stolen blood transfusions and animal plasma. He'd held up a cooler of blood bags he'd already gathered, pointed to the exsanguinated deer and rabbits in the corner of the concrete pad. Dean had shaken his head sarcastically, drawling about the natural order, dead being dead, and humans being saved.

In the end, Eric had escaped. A smaller group of young vampires had returned at just the wrong time, distracting the Winchesters. They'd beheaded all of the young turnlings, but after an extensive search they still hadn't found any leads of Eric's whereabouts. Dean had forgotten him, until today.

"What'll it be, Dean?" the forgotten man drawled.

 **29**

The baby was crying. Of the ten people tied in a circle, the tableau that of a modern sacrifice, one was a young woman with a baby, less than a year old. Its wail echoed through the warehouse, the metal walls and looming machinery- long dead- amplified the sound, terrifying the child even more. His mother rocked him as much as she was able; as much as the chains would give, tearfully cooing to him, trying to keep her breathing even. Two wet spots dampened the front of her shirt.

Will you shut that thing up?" Eric shouted, volatile once more. He dragged Sam towards his captives. Turning his head to the side, Eric whispered, "If you don't shut it up, I will drink it first, regardless of Dean's choice. They say infant is a delicacy… like veal".

The scent of urine rose from somewhere else in the circle of unwilling witnesses, a captive audience to this act of revenge.

"Please," the woman pleased, turning red and puffy eyes towards the ageless creature. "Please."

"Don't beg me," he replied sweetly in another mercurial mood swing. "Ask Dean." He gestured to the older hunter with a jerk of his chin.

The woman turned her eyes towards the horrified Winchester. "Please," she whispered again.

 **28**

The woman's quiet, broken request for life fell on Dean's ears like hammer blows. He'd built up an endless list of regrets in his life; a list of sins for which he could never do penance enough. Near the top of that red-inked tally was a lesson he had learned far too late: sometimes doing the right thing doesn't mean killing. Sometimes it means walking away.

When Dean slept, he was often revisited by those he'd killed or those he'd witnessed die. They'd parade in front of him, sometimes whole, other times bleeding and broken. Always, no matter what the scenario, they wanted to know why they'd been killed or why they had to die.

Dean wanted to shout to the heavens, to hell, to anyone that would listen that he hadn't _known_ , how could he? He hadn't _known_ vampirism had a cure, he hadn't _known_ that sometimes a live monster, shown mercy, is less of a reprehensible creature than some humans, he hadn't _known_ so many things.

No matter how many times he told himself that, how many times he made excuses, he couldn't buy it. If he had learned more, tired harder, people wouldn't have had to die; there would be fewer faces in Dean's nocturnal panel of guilt.

Dean looked at the young mother. "I'm sorry," he said lowly, voice cracking.

 **27**

Sam watched the torment play across his brother's face, the emotions as easy for Sam to read as a page printed in block print, size 48 font. Dean was flipping through emotions like a card deck, anger and fear and guilt and resignation and hatred and determination flicking across his face, a slideshow of the Winchester experience.

The younger hunted ground his teeth and jerked once more in the shorter vampire's hold. What the creature lacked in size he made up for in ill-gotten strength. The claws in Sam's neck stung, the finger's pinching his windpipe tightened, and the knife pressed against his spine pushed a little harder. Sam staggered as vision fuzzed around the edges.

"Time's wasting, Dean," teased their captor.

 **26**

It is a well-documented phenomena in humans that in times of high stress, the adrenal gland pumps out massive amounts of adrenaline and other hormones. These can give the perception of time slowing, can sharpen reflexes and increase a person's strength, and also allow them to process the threat in greater detail than the brain would normally record.

Dean should be used to this by now, considering that something tried to kill him, eat him, or both at least once a week. All of the times before this- all of those times he thought to himself _well, this is how it ends,_ all of the moments he was convinced he was going to be monster kibble, each time he was _sure_ he saw Sam fall- all of those experiences paled in comparison to this.

This wasn't a monster he could outrun or outfight, this wasn't a hunt that he could carefully lay out and plan for contingencies, this was a lose-lose situation. This was Dean's personal Charge of the Light Brigade; this was his Valley of Death. The worst thing, the _very worst thing_ , he thought, was that he was going to have to live with his decision.

As though he knew where Dean's thoughts were going, Eric smiled wolfishly.

 **25**

On the back side of the circle, facing the wrong way to see anything, was a quiet middle aged woman. She kept her head down, partially praying, mostly listening to what was happening behind her.

 _And though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil…_

Someone behind her was whistling the Jeopardy! theme song.

… _you are with me, thy rod and staff, they comfort me…_

For a moment, a split second, all she could hear was breathing- harsh and labored from one, deep and ragged from another. Then,"You son of a bitch!" one of them yelled, their scream echoing briefly through the empty room.

 _I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever._

She was slowly losing faith that any of them would make it out alive.

 **24**

Eric licked a stripe up Sam's neck, hovering over the point where his pulse fluttered. "Salty," he crooned in younger hunter's ear. "And musky. I like it."

"You son of a bitch!" snarled Dean, taking a step towards Eric and Sam.

"Ah ah ah," Eric reproached, letting his fangs extend from his gums.

 **23**

Eric and Dean stared each other down, the greenish-gold eyes locking with the nearly-black of the vampire.

 **22**

 _Alright, the deaf guy is confused,_ one of the ten thought to himself. He'd been keeping up alright so far, heavily relying on his ability to read lips and body language. Dark-haired toothy guy was bad ( _kidnapper, duh),_ the smokin' hot freckled guy in leather was mad about everything, particularly because he thought Bad Guy was going to kill Very Attractive Tall Man.

It was about some kind of revenge.

"Sam or…" he read.

 _Or?! Or what? The circle of kidnapped folks? Not okay!_

The men shifted so that most of their mouths were obscured, leaving the teen in silent confusion and contemplation. He'd watched the scene long enough to guess that Very Attractive Tall Man and Freckles in Leather were intimate somehow. It was almost eerie how attuned they were to each other, their bodies following the others like sunflowers towards the sun.

He looked around as much of the circle as he could see, and tried to fill in the missing members with those he saw on the van ride. It was him- a broken human, a few old people, a teen or early-twenties mom, and a couple randos.

He glanced back at the men- partners of some sort.

While he didn't want to die, he wouldn't mind _too_ much. It looked like these men needed a break.

 **21**

Dean felt tears pricking at his eyes, and he blinked furiously, keeping his eyes squinted. This couldn't be how it happened, not like this. It was never supposed to be like this.

 **20**

Sam saw Dean's eyes get watery, and then he did that squinty thing, that stupid squinty no-I-don't-have-feelings squint he did when things were really getting to him.

"Dean," Sam choked around the grip on his throat. He wanted to tell him it was okay, that he was ready, that Dean could do this. He didn't have enough air, so he just stared, pleading, hoping to get the message across.

 **19**

Sam was giving him the eyes, Puppy Eyes 2.0. It was the look Sam gave Dean when he talked about the demon blood, the look he gave him during the trials, the look on his face when he said "So?" back in that godforsaken church. It was Sam's face that said _it's okay, I'm okay, you can do this._

Every time, every goddamn time it made Dean remember dropping Sam off at his house near Stanford, before the Wendigo and Jess burned and Sam was back in this mess. He'd told Sam that he couldn't do it alone.

Sam's reply: "You don't want to."

He didn't want to do it alone then. He really didn't want to try doing it alone now. Not after everything else.

 **18**

"Let us go! This doesn't involve us!" shouted some suit-wearing man on the edge of the circle, just barely able to see the three men if he craned his gelled head.

Their kidnapper sighed dramatically. "It involves you now. Have you not been listening?" Eric rolled his eyes. "Correction, Dean. If you choose to kill Sam, I'm still going to drink Suit over there. So you'll be saving nine lives. It's still a good deal."

The man in the suit hunched over his damp and pungent lap and did not say another word.

 **17**

Eric could hear all the hearts in the room frantically thrumming blood, pumping adrenaline and cortisol and other hormones left over from humanity's monkey days throughout their bodies. They were all afraid, even the glorious Winchesters. He'd done it, he was controlling this. He felt a little drunk on their fear, on his own power in this place.

 **16**

"Take me instead," bargained Dean, his voice confident. He was ready, ready to die (again) to save his brother and other innocent lives, people who, until an hour ago, were oblivious to the supernatural around them.

"No way," sneered Eric, tugging on Sam again. "This about your suffering. Death's too quick for that."

"Buddy, you ain't been to hell," muttered Dean.

 **15**

There was silence in the cement and metal room, only the sounds of panted breaths could be heard.

 **14**

Dean felt like he'd been running for miles and miles and miles with nowhere to turn; like he was trapped in a dream in which he was helpless to move at all.

 **13**

It had always been about Sammy- dropping out of school, the demon deals all of it… there wasn't any point without Sam. No point at all.

 **12**

Dean forced himself to break eye contact with his baby brother, shifting his gaze back to the vampire cowering behind the much larger hunter.

 **11**

Sam renewed his struggles to escape from the vampire's hold.

 **10**

Sam knew what he wanted- he wanted to save as many people as he could, he didn't want to live his life knowing that Dean had condemned ten people to die just because of him. In Sam's mind there was already too much blood on his hands, a stain from which he would never be free. _Me_ he mouthed to Dean. _Pick me._

He knew his brother would never do it. He'd turn the gun on himself before he killed Sam. Sam also knew that if he chose to sacrifice those people- _when_ he chose to sacrifice those people- that Dean would never be able to live with it. It would consume him. And Eric was counting on that.

 **9**

A retiree, doctor's forms and prescription scripts still in his pocket, watched the tableau unfold. He looked around the circle of people in chains alongside him, and then turned back to the standoff in front of him. He hoped this young man- this Dean- saved his brother. He was going to die anyway, he'd heard it from the doctor this morning- six to eight months.

The retiree, fishing hat still on his head, thought about his brother, fallen in Vietnam. He'd watched his brother die, blood bubbling around the shrapnel. He wouldn't wish that on anyone. He'd come home to see the grief and regret in his mother's eyes, wondering why he couldn't keep his brother safe. He saw the ghost of his brother everywhere he went, and it had eventually driven him into the bottle.

 _Pick us_ he willed the wavering man. _Kill us._

 **8**

Eric watched the resolve waver in Dean's eyes and slowly turn to panic. He'd done it- he'd backed this hunter, "the best hunter in history", into a corner from which he would never escape. Eric knew he would pick Sam; Dean always picked Sam. Eric also knew the guilt, the self-loathing, would be more of a punishment than anything Eric himself could ever deliver. Adjusting his grip on Sam, he grinned behind the tall hunter's shoulder.

 **3**

Dean shifted, hyperaware of the gun butt pressed against his spine. Eric ran his teeth over the nape of Sam's neck.

 **2**

Dean wrapped his clammy hand around the barrel of the Colt, tucked into the back waistband of his jeans.

 **1**

Eric grinned, a macabre display of needle-like teeth, and turned his gaping leer towards the side of Sam's neck.

Sam locked eyes with Dean- the sunshine and moss meeting whiskey and pine- and gave a tiny nod.

Dean shot his brother.

 **Epilogue**

The colt killed all things supernatural- well, almost all things, as the boys discovered during a face-off with Satan himself.

Neither of them had a clue what the gun did to those of the human persuasion- they gambled everything- Sam's life, Dean's reason for existence since the age of four- on the gun only being a gun for humans like Sam.

Sam fell, blood gushing from his shoulder in pulsing red waves. As the cement beneath him grew ruddier, Sam's face became more and more pale.

Dean tugged Sam's head and shoulders over his knees. "Sammy," he growled, panicking at the vague expression he saw clouding his brother's eyes. "Sammy!"

Pulling his crimson-stained hands away from his brother, Dean pawed through the inside breast pocket of his worn leather jacket. He felt paper rustle, and ripped it out.

He tore the packet open with his teeth, and a hooked suture needle and silk thread fell out. He'd swiped a handful of these from the last ER they'd visited, and thank god he did.

Dean tore through the material of Sam's thick flannel shirt like it was nothing. The wound was bleeding more sluggishly now, but Dean was already kneeling in a hot pool of Sam's blood, the front of his jean's tacky.

He sewed up the front of Sam, where shoulder and clavicle meet, before roughly flipping Sam over and hastily, sloppily, closing that wound.

A few feet away Eric gave a gurgling laugh.

Dean did his best to ignore it, taking his brother's pulse, watching his chest rise and fall, checking his stitch work for leaks.

After a while- a moment, an hour, a lifetime- Sam's heartbeat was weak, but steady, and his stitches were holding. Dean took off his own shirt, folded it into a makeshift pillow, and laid Sam's head down on it.

Slowly, chest and arms coated in his brother's blood, Dean walked towards the fallen vampire.

He wasn't dead yet, the bullet had slowed on its passage through Sam and had embedded itself high in the creature's sternum. He was flickering orange- bright and firey- and oozing blood over the cement, far more blood than one body should contain.

Dean crouched down next to him, his boots squelching in the cooling, viscous liquid.

"You shot… your brother," Eric whispered through pinked-tinged bubbles of saliva. His eyes still glittered maniacally.

Dean's jaw clenched, a muscle twitching, his nostrils flaring, but he didn't reply. Instead, he leaned forward and set the tip of his index finger in the bullet-hole and _pushed._

The vampire screamed, a shriek of agony and suffering emitted from dying men since the beginning of pain, long before the concept of time. His body arched, his eyes and nose and mouth glowed like hellfire, and still Dean ground the bullet in, his eyes cold and hard.

Once the light had faded away, the vampire dead for good, Dean pulled away his finger and slowly rose. He walked over the dark, tacky floor, his jean's plastered to his legs, and scooped up his brother. Sam's head lolled over Dean's shoulder, and his hands were inches from dragging the ground, but Dean carried him, slowly and surely, to the backseat of the Impala.

He jogged back in a few minutes later with boltcutters, a different flannel draped over his shoulder. He cut the circle of captives loose quietly and efficiently. No one said anything, unwilling to risk a word after what they had witnessed.

Brusquely Dean held the flannel out to the young mother, who took it without meeting his eyes. "Thank you," she whispered.

He nodded and cleared his throat.

"Anybody gonna talk about what happened here today?" he asked the room at large, voice slightly amplified by the high ceilings and empty metal walls.

Everyone shook their head. What would they say? Who would believe them?

Dean nodded once more, sharply, before striding back out to his car. Slamming the door he cranked the engine and squealed out of the parking lot, his brother prone in the backseat.

Despite the numerical score- enemy dead, all others alive- Dean was never able to think of this as a win. Whenever Sam tried to bring it up, Dean threatened his brother with violence or changed the subject. Finally Sam let it go, which was more than Dean could do. In his nightmares, Eric had joined the ranks of Dean's ghosts and echoes. If Dean had listened to him all those years ago, what would have happened?

Slowly, over time, the ten innocent witnesses forgot the details of the event, but Dean… Dean never forgot a thing. That was one of the hardest decisions of his life, and it all happened in thirty seconds.


End file.
